Technology company Pulsifi, with operations in Malaysia and Singapore, have announced their success in acquiring US$1.1 million from angel investors.

They specialise in providing HR solutions with added AI and organisational psychology features, and have managed to get notable clients and partners such as Nestlé and Amazon Web Services since starting out in 2016.

Yesterday in Kuala Lumpur, technology company Pulsifi announced their success in acquiring US$1.1 million in angel funding. The Singaporean-Malaysian company with operations in both countries was founded in 2016 and specialises in developing Human Resource platforms with added artificial intelligence and organisational psychology features.

The investors for this round include Chi Sieng Tiong, formerly of Kelly Services, Asia Pacific, Chieh Suang Khor, principal at Cento Ventures, and Lon Wong, founder of ProximaX and former president of the NEM.io Foundation.

“Pulsifi is entering a new phase of growth through this funding and more importantly this partnership with such experienced investors,” said Peter Yoong, co-founder of Pulsifi. “With their expertise and experience, we are well on our way to realising our vision of helping companies better understand their employees, and employees to better understand themselves.”

Since starting out two years ago, Pulsifi have managed to carve a space for themselves in the HR market by offering solutions that leverage off predictive models and machine learning to help companies better manage their workforces.

According to their team, this funding comes at a time where HR technology is becoming increasingly relevant, with a recent study by IBM showing 66% of CEOs and 50% of HR executives believing that AI will transform the HR industry.

Immediately, they will utilise their funding to improve their AI capabilities as well as upgrade their HR platform to be more adept at every stage of the employment period—from hiring all the way to retirement.

“It is really tough to build out an enterprise-grade platform with our kind of scope,” Peter said. “Besides enhancing the talent acquisition and talent management use cases, we are also strengthening our user experience, predictive algorithms, scalability and security.”

“We architected our platform to be scalable across geographies, so we are planning to raise another round in the near future to replicate our success in new markets such as the US, Europe and Australia.”

Playing With The Big Kids

Pulsifi have managed to build an impressive list of clientele and partner organisations that include MNCs like Nestlé, Deustche Telekom T-Systems, IBM, and Amazon Web Services, all within the span of a year.

“We have been super lucky to have supportive multinational clients give us a head-start,” Peter said. “They deployed Pulsifi in their local offices, were very satisfied with the results, and recommended us to their global headquarters for bigger opportunities.”

Peter explained that although his company started in 2016, it was only from 2017 onward that it all started coming together, meaning that most of this success transpired within the span of one year. On how this happened, he said that it was all down to experience and knowing just what to do.

“Very early on, we knew what we needed and wanted to achieve in terms of solid clients and partners, so we went about making a plan to get there in the shortest amount of time,” Peter explained. “To make that plan, we sought feedback from lots of potential clients, partners and investors, and as a new and small company, it took a lot of creative hustling to get in front of these people.”

“A small portion of them were also extremely sceptical about new approaches to old problems, and dismissed us quickly,” he added.

“It was demoralising at times, but looking back, it is also pretty hilarious reflecting on some of the bad ideas we took to market for feedback.”

Speaking on what made his company so attractive for investors, Peter cited three factors—their relevance, their vision, and their people.

“Firstly, the problem we are solving is very real globally. Most organisations struggle with hiring, retention and development because it is not easy to truly understand potential and current employees and if they achieve a good fit with the role, team and organisation,” he said. “Our angel investors certainly experience this pain.”

“Secondly, we have a grand vision of helping build great organisations by developing great people—we want to change the paradigm not just for employers, but also for employees,” he added. “There are so many people out there who do not enjoy their work because of mismatch in competencies, passion or values.”

“Pulsifi can help them better understand themselves, and have employers that provide the best fit opportunities to recognise that. While as a business we need to make money, what really drives us as a team is not that, but instead changing the world.”

Adding onto that sentiment, investor Chi Sieng Tiong attributed Pulsifi’s relevance to the industry as one of his key decisions for investing.

“People are the heart of every organisation. The ability to understand people makes Pulsifi invaluable to every organisation and every working person out there,” he said. “They are showing strong growth and adoption using innovative technologies to bring improvements in quality and speed of information in talent management.”